Drip
by Reluctant Dragon
Summary: Something is wrong in the Lair. Michaelangelo Muses.


_This is just an eerie little one-shot that I've had sitting on my hard-drive for quite some time now, and I figured now was as good a time as any to haul it out of storage. I know, I haven't posted anything in an inexcusably long time, but going to college as a pre-med/bio major tends to suck the life out of your free time, and the plot bunnies haven't exactly been as eager to get written as they have been in the past. I've still got one or two stories left to tell yet, but regularity is something I can't promise. _

_ As always, the turtles aren't mine, never have been, never will be, and I promise to return them to their proper place as soon as I'm done playing with them._

* * *

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._

The dripping was driving him mad.

Slowly.

_Drip_.

Painfully.

_Drip_.

Mad.

_Drip_.

Donnie wouldn't fix it though. Donnie wasn't moving much now.

_Drip_.

Michaelangelo snorted.

_Drip. _

Wasn't fair. Wasn't fair at all, for _him_ to just sit there and not fix it. Michaelango was _sure_ that Donnie could hear it- Donnie was even closer to the pipe than he was.

_Drip._

_Drip-drip._

_Drip-drip._

The drops of water were coming faster now. Donnie still wasn't moving. Mikey felt that he once would have gotten up and done something about it by now but moving was hard work and he was tired.

_Drip-drip._

And the dripping wasn't annoying him _that_ much. He could almost make a song out of the noises, as they

_Drip-drip._

came in perfect regularity, almost like a drum-line. Or a base line. He started humming a tune under his breath.

_Drip-drip._

Come to think of it, Leo and Raph hadn't moved in a long time either. They were just sitting there, leaned up against each other on the couch. Like they didn't fight all the time, like they could totally stand to be in each other's presence for a period of time longer than a few minutes, just peacefully.

_Drip-drip._

With an electronic fizzle, the lights went out, plunging the lair into utter darkness. The red emergency lights came on with a muffled clank, and Mikey's eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness that cloaked the room.

_Drip-dripdrip._

The water was coming faster now. Pipe was still broken.

"Donnie…" It was odd, hearing his voice in the red-dark. He heard something shuffling around in Donnie's corner.

"Donnie?" Don didn't answer.

_Drip-dripdrip._

"Don, wake up and fix it." He ordered. His speech was a little slurred, but he didn't notice it. It had been quiet in the lair for so very long… His voice echoed among the thick pipes that made up the ceiling of his home, and the shuffling grew louder.

Through the dim crimson light, he could faintly make out Don, who was jerking his leg in an odd fashion.

"Don?" A picture flashed into his mind of a dying cat he had once happened upon during one of his nightly patrols- Don had said that it looked like it had been poisoned. It had jerked around in a similar fashion before finally freezing up and just stopping- stopped breathing, moving … it had disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. He had wanted to bury it, but they didn't have time, or a shovel. Or unpaved ground.

_Drip-dripdrip._

"Donnie?" He croaked, his voice rough and barely recognizable.

So they had left the cat in a small furry hump at the base of building, and he tried not to think about how he didn't think that being poisoned looked very fun. He told himself that he would never die that way. No, he'd die in some magnificent battle, saving an innocent maiden and would forever be remembered as a hero.

Or he'd finally get his way and eat so much pizza that he would burst. Whichever came first.

A sharp cracking sound broke the monotonous dripping, and for a moment Michaelangelo was relieved. Then he heard the rushing, bubbling sound of a great mass of water rushing closer and closer.

He thought he would have been more concerned if he wasn't so darn tired.

When the water overtook him, he let it wash over him without struggling.

Everything was quieter underwater.

* * *

"In other news today, a massive leak in the water main of downtown Manhattan caused a cascade of traffic and delays. Many disgruntled citizens had to be evacuated from the area due to flooding, backed up sewage mains, and hydrogen sulfide fumes. Subway trains will not be running for at least another twelve to twenty-four hours, or until the contaminated areas have been cleaned. Officials hope to get this mess cleaned up before the long weekend." 

The heavily makeuped anchorman turned to his co-anchor. "Man, I wouldn't want to be in those tunnels right now, would you, Diane?"

The woman, who was even more heavily makeuped than her companion, gave a forced laugh, a sickly fake smile plastered to her face. "No, can't say that I would, Dave. Let's just hope those people can return to their homes soon! In other news, here's a critter who just might enjoy the flooding! Meet Chester, the water-skiing squirrel, and boy, does he know how to party!"

* * *

April turned off her television set. 

A sense of doom filled her senses. The flooding was near the turtles and their home, or at least she thought so-the underground and the aboveground worlds were such drastically separated worlds, she still had problems discerning between the two. She hugged a pillow to her chest and stared at her phone, willing it to ring.

They'd call soon, she knew that they would. They always pulled this act- there would be no possible way to escape some plan of the Shredder or Bishop, and a day or two later they'd pop up again, no worse for the wear. She used to yell at them for scaring her, for not telling her right away that they were alright, but more often than not she would only find out they were in deadly trouble after the fact, when they were sitting in her kitchen eating her out of house and home and laughing and joking like they didn't have a care in the world.

They'd call soon, she knew that they would. They would know that this kind of flooding would have surely made the news, that she would have seen and would be worrying. Any minute now she would hear the phone ring or the gently tap of one of their knuckles against her windowpane, cause they obviously couldn't stay in the lair now.

She glanced at the clock and returned to staring at the phone. It would ring soon. _God, please, let it ring soon._

_Please, let them be okay._

She hoped prayers still worked.

A noise interrupted her inner turmoil.

_Drip. Drip._

One of these days she needed get that sink fixed.


End file.
